Saturday, May 11, 2013

The World's End

Oh boy.

Have you seen the trailer for The World's End?

I am so excited. Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost. I'm a big fan. You've seen their stuff, right? If not, you need to get on that, because they make good stuff. Really good stuff. Smart and funny stuff. Clever and hilarious stuff. Stuff that somehow walks the line between both being a really funny homage/parody of a certain type of movie and at the same time, a really good example of that particular genre. Shaun of the Dead, for instance, is both a great send-up of the many familiar tropes of zombie films, but also an excellent zombie movie in its own right. Hot Fuzz is a hilarious mish-mash of the type of classic 80s/90s flicks like Lethal Weapon or Point Break that we all know and love, and yet it is also a really entertaining action-comedy. Just take a look at their legendary BBC series about roomies sharing a flat: Spaced. It is hilarious, self-aware, and riff-tastic. It is also filled to the brim with references and hidden easter eggs and secret handshakes galore. The long and the short of it is, they know the language, people, the language of film and comics and TV.

To put it more succinctly:

Gooble, Gobble indeed... One of us. One of us. We accept you.

But even better than knowing the language, they're smart. Because all that geek stuff is great, right? The secret words, the funny handshakes, the little easter eggs hidden about for the well versed and deeply initiated to stumble upon? It's all great. But if that's all you've got, then you don't really have much. No. No, sir. The really good part about these guys is that there's always more. Shaun of the Dead isn't just a comedy about a zombie apocalypse, it's about being stuck in a rut and deciding to grow up. Sounds odd, right? It's really well done. Hot Fuzz? You could say Hot Fuzz is about finding your place in the world, about accepting who you are and embracing it. You could also say it's also about kicking ass... And as for World's End? Well, time will tell, but after watching the trailer I'd say that it's about the danger of spending too much time looking back and dwelling on the past.

The World's End is the third film in their Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy (also known as the Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy). Why is it called the Three Flavours of Cornetto? Well, in a reference to Krzysztof Kieslowski's Red, White, and Blue films, the Three Flavours films are apparently all connected to a flavor of Cornetto Ice Cream. It's a thing. Anyway, each film features a scene of someone purchasing the appropriate flavor. Strawberry in Shaun of the Dead (Red for Blood). The original Blue flavor in Hot Fuzz to signify the Police. And in The World's End it will be mint chocolate chip. I would think the green is to signify aliens. How about you?

Published Work

Now you can get all the short stories published this year through the Onyx Neon Shorts Imprint, at a fraction of the cost, plus a lot of new content too. This collection not only includes my short story Harris, but a new one as well. It's called Billy Torch takes a Beating.